Thursday, February 9, 2017

Sometimes, emotional pain or intense
disappointment because something didn’t go our way can lead to self-criticism
and self-recrimination (self-blame). Rather than direct our negative emotion
toward the cause or source of this pain, we turn on ourselves. For example,
have you ever told yourself that the reason a romantic partner ended the
relationship with you was because you were unattractive and actually “unworthy”
of his or her love? Have you ever scolded yourself for being unskilled and
“hopeless” at your job when a relatively new, junior colleague got the
pay-raise or promotion you deserved after you landed that big account? Or, have
you ever blamed yourself for “doing something stupid” that resulted in an
injury while playing your favorite sport or doing a maintenance project around
the house? If so, you have turned against yourself, which is a form of
defense mechanism.

I previously touched on this phenomenon
in my blog titled Stop! Negative Self Talk. Every time we disparage ourselves we
create powerful, negative subconscious messages about ourselves that undermine
our self-confidence and self-esteem. Since the subconscious mind doesn’t know
the difference between fantasy (imagination) and reality, thinking or speaking
these negative beliefs in a moment of pique cause equal damage.

Like other defense mechanisms, turning against self is: 1) unconscious;
2) self-deceptive; 3) and it distorts reality through thoughts and action. According to the Hypnosis
Motivation Institute
founder John Kappas, Ph.D.’s Theory of Mind, people are subconsciously
motivated to maintain and/or restore a known
physical and emotional status of comfort and security. Whenever someone
says or does something that causes physical injury, hurts your feelings or
challenges your beliefs, your mind automatically tries to compensate for this
threat or “pain” by activating this or another form of defense mechanism. In
this case, you turn against yourself to avoid having to experience the pain of
rejection or disappointment that someone else caused you.

To help someone change this behavior, while
the client is in hypnosis I desensitize him or her to the situation (and similar situations) that
triggered this defense mechanism. I also employ
therapeutic guided-imagery techniques to help them reframe their negative
beliefs and self-recrimination to positive thoughts that are self-nurturing and
promote self-love and self-confidence. Finally, I use imagery techniques to enable the individual to
find solutions for those situations and visualize how they have overcome this
setback and which lessons they learned from this experience have increased
self-confidence and social coping skills.